Assessment Policies and Procedures: Manual and Automated Testing
During the initial phases of accessibility assessment, we use a number of manual and automated tests to review a site for conformance.
Manual Testing
Sites are tested with a number of different Graphical User Interface (GUI) browsers running on different platforms while performing the following tests:
- Images turned off to insure that alternate content is available.
- Style sheets turned off to insure that content in rendered in a usable way when style sheets are turned off or an authors style sheet is overridden by user-specified styles.
- Pages are tested at screen resolutions as low as 800 x 600 pixels to insure that no horizontal scrolling is required when viewing pages at smaller screen resolutions.
- Browser controls are used to vary font size to insure that users have the ability to control the presentation of information.
- Page selection is analyzed to insure proper contrast between background and foreground elements such as text, images, etc.
- When audio and/or video content is available, content is checked to insure that alternate text transcripts are provided.
Automated Testing
Sites are screened with at least two automated accessibility assessment tools such as Watch Fire’s Bobby, A-Prompt, and Page Valet. Potential accessibility issues are identified and resolved early in the automated testing phase of accessibility assessment. The page selection is then tested using the W3C s HTML and CSS validators to insure that appropriate syntax is used throughout.
